Development Info Tim Cain at Reboot Develop 2017 - Building a Better RPG: Seven Mistakes to Avoid

[Roguey]

That's why say, NV has everyone and their grandmother using and MANUFACTURING super complex energy weapons.

This isn't true considering that the Van Graffs destroy anyone else who tries to move into the energy weapons market. People get their energy weapons from them.

 

[Sigourn]

I agree with TimCain that RPGs should have less steep learning curves. It's possible to have a complex RPG redone in such a way that it is more accessible, yet remain as complex as before. Fallout is a very, very poor example. Fallout is already an easy game to get into, as opposed to a game like Baldur's Gate, for example. And only because Baldur's Gate uses a much more complex rule system, straight from D&D.

It doesn't matter if the player is unable to complete the game. What matters is that the player finds it enjoyable enough to buy it. And it's hard to find something enjoyable when you can't even learn how to play it without some serious obstacles on the way. When you have fun with something, you will be more likely to push through the obstacles and thus beat the game.

I particularly like games that have in-built tutorials that reveal aspects of the game's mechanics as the need to be acquaintanced with those mechanics arises. This makes it easier for the player to memorize these mechanics, as opposing to having a crash-course and read everything from a 100-page manual before playing the game.

In the end, as long as the games still remain complex, more player flow will only benefit us.

 

[Infinitron]

TimCain still hasn't endorsed my insanely creative picture? For shame, Timbro.

TBH, when Obsidian first announced/leaked a Tim Cain project I was hoping for a turn-based, Fallout/Arcanum-like game/setting with Divinity: Original Sin kind of graphics (but less cartoony and more grimdork). It seems to me that I'm going to end up p. disappointed.

Yup, we all did. I thought TC would be last one to jump popamole train... but he did...

We did? I thought everybody thought it was going to be Bloodlines 2.

 

[Alex]

(...snip)
No, he was right. If you were into Ravenloft or Dragonlance, chances were, you wouldn't give rat's ass about anything Birthright or Dark Sun. Sad but true.

Well, I think a lot of people actually liked several settings... But of course, you only have so much money to spend, so that didn't help TSR much.

Strange that the same reasoning didn't particularly hurt White Wolf, but I guess they weren't as generous with their money.

Good point. I wonder if the way they created meta-plot may have been a factor. I suppose people who bought the books may have been more invested in them because they wanted to know how everything would end up. I get the impression White Wolf really was cheaper as you suggest, since their books were mostly black and white and they usually didn't bother with boxed sets.

Just for the record what they have released of the DnD Next and 5th.
DnD Next from 2012 - 2014: Dreams of the Red Wizards I and II(Scourge of the Sword Coast, Dead in the They), Sundering Adventure I and II(Murder in Baldur's Gate, Legacy of the Crystal Shard).
DnD 5th edition releases of adventures 2015 - 2017:
Hoard of the Dragon Queen, The Rise of Tiamat, Prince of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Sword Coast Adventurer's Guild, Curse of Strahd, Storm King's Thunder, Volo's Guide to Monsters, Tales from the Yawning Portal (a collection of some old adventures). Next to be released is "Unearthed Arcana" in my opinion.

Not one campaign fucking setting? Not the fucking Forgotten Realms 5e?

This game is officially dead, folks.

Weird, I thought 5e was supposed to be doing ok, even great. I wonder what is going on here.

 

[mondblut]

Weird, I thought 5e was supposed to be doing ok, even great. I wonder what is going on here.

If their business model now consists of producing and selling the PHB alone, they could just as well drop it too and focus on dice manufacturing. D&D without settings can suck my dick.

 

[Alex]

I don't particularly care about 5e, but usually D&D is a good measure of the industry. If D&D is not doing well, then RPGs probably aren't doing well as a whole.

 

[Lurker King]

I agree with TimCain that RPGs should have less steep learning curves. It's possible to have a complex RPG redone in such a way that it is more accessible, yet remain as complex as before.

That depends. If we are talking about genuine cRPGs, i.e., with complex character building, then the answer is no. Any tutorial, no matter how helpful it is, will still involve a steep learning curve. On the other hand, if we are considering games with simple rules that become complex in the aggregate by multiple combinations (Path of Exile, etc.), then the learning curve is not steep, because it is widespread in the gameplay, but now you are talking about a MMO, not a genuine cRPG.

What's considered unaccessible here isn't the complexity or "difficulty" of the system as such. It's the basic fact that you have to go through a big wall of numbers before starting the game, regardless of the true complexity/difficulty of that wall of numbers.

Again, I believe the true issue here is the speed of getting into the game. "Difficulty" is of course correlated with that, but secondary to it.

Exactly. This is popamole semantics where the usual meanings don’t apply. What they mean by “complex” or “steep learning curve” is “character building” or “crushing numbers”. They are convinced that this is a thing of a bygone area because they want bad action games with inventory and magic times.

 

[Sigourn]

That depends. If we are talking about genuine cRPGs, i.e., with complex character building, then the answer is no. Any tutorial, no matter how helpful it is, will still involve a steep learning curve.

It would be much more helpful to bring a game into the comparison, so we could argue on how to make it more accessible to the newbies, yet at the same time sacrificing no mechanics at all. I think there is really no exception to what I suggest. Of course, if one wants a brutally complex game that is extremely unforgiving from the get go, no wonder people will be alienated. But I do believe that by increasing the difficulty at a reasonable pace, as opposed to "you must know all the mechanics from the start to succeed", any RPG can be made accessible.

Exceptions would be roguelikes: you either love them or hate them, there's no middle ground, and it has nothing to do with knowing the mechanics.

 

[Lurker King]

It would be much more helpful to bring a game into the comparison, so we could argue on how to make it more accessible to the newbies, yet at the same time sacrificing no mechanics at all.

Well, I think Tim Cain’s own presentation settles the question then, because he said that Fallout and Arcanum character building systems are too complex for most people. This assessment isn’t accurate, to say the least. How could we make it less intimidating to a new audience? The only option is to explain the role of each element in the system, but this is already done by the game itself, with tips and text-descriptions, and somehow this is still too complex. This suggests that this whole debate is a big red herring to avoid a discussion about what is really happening, and what is really happening here is this: people don’t have the patience or the mental habit necessaries to build a character with stats and skills, so this time-honored cornerstone of cRPGs is suddenly considered “too complex” and must be replaced by something else in order to please this wider audience that never liked cRPGs in the first place.

 

[Father Foreskin]

The idea that removing numbers and switching to shapes leads to lower complexity by default is false. Just replicating simple shapes can lead to complex constructs like great stellated dodecahedron.

 

[nikolokolus]

I don't particularly care about 5e, but usually D&D is a good measure of the industry. If D&D is not doing well, then RPGs probably aren't doing well as a whole.

The market is likely fragmented like never before. Lots of Pathfinder players and a metric fuck-ton of other systems from Dungeon World, Fate, Savage Worlds, Dungeon Crawl classics and more OSR retroclones than you can shake a stick at.

I don't have any inside information, but I suspect the majority of the PnP market is aging dorks in their thirties and forties and fifties. I'd be very surprised if the millennials are playing lots of tabletop RPGs, but who knows? And because Hasbro is a toy company I doubt they care very much about a niche market with the piddly revenue the D&D brand generates -- a drop in the bucket compared to something like Magic and Monopoly.

 

[Zeriel]

TimCain still hasn't endorsed my insanely creative picture? For shame, Timbro.

TBH, when Obsidian first announced/leaked a Tim Cain project I was hoping for a turn-based, Fallout/Arcanum-like game/setting with Divinity: Original Sin kind of graphics (but less cartoony and more grimdork). It seems to me that I'm going to end up p. disappointed.

Yup, we all did. I thought TC would be last one to jump popamole train... but he did...

He's been working on popamole for decades now. And unlike Boyarsky, who had some backhanded things to say about what he had been working on, he seems to have sipped the modern design koolaid. I can't say I'm surprised.

 

[Delbaeth]

Well, at least, that speack has been logically at the Reboot conference.
So maybe a Fallout or Arcanum or Bloodlines ' reboot is in the works.

 

[Lhynn]

Weird, I thought 5e was supposed to be doing ok, even great. I wonder what is going on here.

If their business model now consists of producing and selling the PHB alone, they could just as well drop it too and focus on dice manufacturing. D&D without settings can suck my dick.

They are actually doing quite well, slow burning and selling their core books to as many people as they can while they release free weekly updates. When a module does come out it gets bought by a lot of people it seems, and i have heard nothing but praise for most of them.
It seems they have understood they are niche and cant really afford to burn out their audience like they did in previous editions.

 

[Fenix]

If they do something like Fallout 4 but better - I wouldn't mind to play it.

 

[selkin]

At least be glad that Cain and Boyarsky are trying to make something new again in the RPG genre.

 

[Sigourn]

In the end, as long as the games still remain complex, more player flow will only benefit us.

A reasonable opinion, but I guess players will always prefer videogames done on indie budgets as opposed to a nice cash flow, judging from the ratings...

Ironic, this is the Codex's best RPG of the last years.

Much Geraldo, very complex.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Forgot to change your alt?

 

[Sigourn]

Forgot to change your alt?

Quoting myself is silly, but saying something without context is even worse.

It's not like I said "RPGs are too complex, and need to be streamlined for the masses".

Rather: with a proper introduction, you can make a lot of games easier to understand for the player. Of couse, if you place an enemy that expects to know exactly what you are doing at the very beginning, a lot of people will find that uncomfortable and not worth their time.

 

[Fairfax]

No fucking way that reply wasn't meant for an alt.

Ban him!

 

[Infinitron]

Suspicious indeed, but I don't see that anybody else is posting from his (non-proxy) IP address.

 

[Sigourn]

No fucking way that reply wasn't meant for an alt.

Ban him!

That you think I'm using an alt goes on to show you are probably one of those losers who do have one.

 

[Irenaeus]

Argentina is not sending their best.

 

[Fairfax]

Suspicious indeed, but I don't see that anybody else is posting from his (non-proxy) IP address.

The original account would suffice.

 

[Sigourn]

Argentina is not sending their best.

Says the Brazilian nigger.